Blissfully Exciting

Monday, August 25, 2008

Blissfully Exciting

Don't Anyone Burst These Bubbles!
We Are The Dancing Queens!
Mamma Mia!

I have some exciting news! The site Blissfully Domestic was looking for some contributors to write some articles in their fields of expertise, so I submitted some things I have done. And they selected me to be one of their writers! I really love the posts on this site and I am so excited about this.

I will be writing about decorating, home staging, marketing for real estate sales, etc. This is the perfect blend of what I love doing...design work, writing, photography and media communications. Wow, who knew something could be so totally suited to my needs and such a perfect fit? I feel very blessed! I will keep you posted on it all. They are launching a big new site redesign on the Tuesday after Labor Day. I need to have my first entry in by then. In the mean time, check out the link to the site if you haven't already. It's a fun one!

I am so nervous and excited!
They sent me the lovely official badges you see on the sidebar.

Second Hand Rose

Second Hand Rose

By request here a few of the great finds I got at a moving sale this week that I can use for the business.

I like to use these types of florals in staging. I put them in a larger pot with moss and they look really great. It is impractical to stage with real greenery and florals as many of the houses are vacant and we do not run a plant service business...sooo we use the "everlasting" flowers and greenery.

Partner to the Above

The first picture made its way into our guest room temporarily while the one I normally have here is "in service" at one of our houses. Love the colors and that there are two of them.


This is a great rose bush for a patio room, porch, etc. It adds a lot of color and is definitely a carefree piece. And at $5.00 it won't break the bank if someone steals it off a front porch. New these are probably close to $45.00. It helps when the moving sale is being held by your sister-in-law! :-) Thanks, Gail!

Here's a fun one for a bathroom!

Decorating Faux Pas

HGTV's 25 Decorating Mistakes from Blissfully Domestic by Rhoda "Did you happen to catch this HGTV special recently? Evidently there are 25 Decorating Mistakes that we absolutely should not do. The red print is Rhonda~the black responses in parentheses are from me. Fake flowers and plants (I confess, I totally disagree with this one. Love the real thing of course but practically speaking, who can afford that in every room in the house all the time? I go into so many houses that have the most dreadful real plants. No thanks for me..I think it is personal preference as long as you buy high quality silks you will be fine. Too many pillows, on the bed or sofa (yes, I'm guilty of this one too) Knick-knack overload (This describes the little statues, etc. or doggie collections to me. Accessories that are larger and make a statement are different. Still keep decluttering all the time though.) Fear of color (apparently, this is not one of my problems) Ignoring windows (I do have a problem with elaborate window coverings personally) Pushed back furniture (don't do this for the most part, if there's room to float, I do it) Tacky couch covers (they were talking clear plastic, can you imagine? does anyone do that anymore? ) Frames too high (this is a pet peeve of mine too) Improper lighting (I think I have this one covered just fine) Floating rugs (nope, not a problem either) Too many colors/patterns (love color & patterns, but I think I'm under control) Furniture that doesn't fit (I think they mean oversized & too much in one room) Following fads (I have been a wee bit guilty of following some fads, but only the good ones) Everything matches (this seemed to be too much of one color in a room, everything the same color). Lack of traffic flow (not good for directing foot traffic in a room, I'm OK with this one) Uncomfortable dining room chairs (mine are pretty bad I must confess.) Too formal (nope, I'm not that formal in any room) Keeping something you hate (nope, I will not have anything out that I hate) Lopsided furnishings (this is balance in a room, not having too much on any one side) Outdated accessories (No ducks on a stick..OK?) Themes (I'm not much for themes) Undressed cables (and wires..put them out of sight) Ignoring the foyer (very important) Too many family photos (haves some around but not in every room) Toilet rugs (hate 'em and no toilet seat covers either. Ugh!)" OK, true confession time. How did you do?

Candyland

Can I just say, I loved yesterday? We worked on the beautiful home that I told you about a few day ago and did some redesigning. This is the best redesign project we have ever had as everything was already so lovely and the furnishings were absolutely gorgeous. I just wanted to share some of the photos.

People often ask me how I can work with the various types of furnishing if they are not "my style." Well, my style came about of necessity, aka lack of money, when first it all began. Also the cottage style of our home is a big consideration. I like all different kinds of interior designs not just the one I live with each day.

The home featured here is very formal, very fancy, opulent, luxurious, and basically like visiting a spa labeled "eye candy." It is rejuvenating just being in the home. It could be a little bungalow at Hearst Castle, a part of The Dunsmuir House, a fabulous movie set, or a Victorian vacation spot. Although I don't live in a house like this~I wouldn't mind the opportunity to 'give it a go' as they say in the UK!

One thing about the house...it is definitely not a manly type house and I cannot envision a bunch of kids living here either. This is a lady's paradise, however. So enjoy the view. Daydream of a couple of days here and the rejuvenating experience you would have. You can bring three friends if you all want your own room. Wanna play this game with me?

If you enjoy this house it is worth the time to double click
on the photos for an enlarged view of the details.

The Entryway
Come On In!


The Parlor is just off the entry. It has another
little red settee as well just opposite this one.
It has a beautiful grandfather clock, a glass display cabinet,
bronze statuary and stylish lamps. It also has multi-paned
glass doors that are really fun and the artwork is amazing.

Living Room ~ before photo


This is the living room now. We brought in the
red to tie it with the parlor and entry and to give it
the color the homeowner was seeking.


Check out some of the eye candy.

The linens and tassels are over the moon!
Maybe I should have named this post
"Tassel Castle"


Gorgeous Accessories

One of the Guest Rooms
Check the loft on all the comforters in this house.
It's hard to grasp in 2-d when it is so 3-dimensional.

The 2 pictures above are before pictures.
See how the lamps are way too
small or out of scale? They also don't match.

Now there are these two beautiful identical lamps in here.
This is my single most favorite thing we changed
that had the biggest impact. In this setting the
lamps couldn't be more prefect.

I have never been a big fan of heavy draperies or
'puddling' but in this house..oh my gosh, it looks amazing!
Double click on this to see the fabric~gorgeous and so feminine.
I can't really envision men's boots here.
Sorry, no boys allowed!

The Blue Room


Another Guest Room
Any Takers?


A Small Corner of The Family Room
And Media Center

I hope you have enjoyed your get-away. We did.
The Interiors by Design Team had a hard time returning to reality
so we stopped on the way home for an ice cream cone to soften the blow.

Beautiful Bedrooms

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

The colors are so warm and soothing.

This is the bedroom of one of my new clients. I love it. This client is just moving in and I am going to help her just work on refining her accessories and furniture placement and help her purchase some new things as needed. Her home is just gorgeous already. She inherited some amazing furnishings and art work that are easily museum quality. She has moved here from a 10,000 square foot home in the mid-west. Her new house is quite a bit smaller and so the challenge is making the over-sized furnishings work.

~Check out the scale of the large display cabinet on the wall~
It is immense and takes up the entire wall. The whole front is beveled and really commands your attention as the focal point in this room.

What I love about this project is having all the fabulous things to work with. Actually there is not a lot that I can do to improve this home. But there are some details...which are always very important in creating just the right feeling in the various areas of the home.

I have always loved beautiful bedrooms and this one is one of my favorites. This lady is into her linens and bedding in a big way, this bedding is all custom made (some of it by the homeowner herself) and this bed does not photograph as beautifully as it should. The bedding is so thick and luxurious and just is the most inviting, lovely bed. The style is very formal and although it is way too fancy for most homes...for her it couldn't be better. Here I will concentrate on the other furniture accessorizing and switch out the lamps. One thing that a formal setting needs is symmetry and this requires taller identical lamps to look its very best. The symmetry adds to the formality with its duplicates and the height is needed because the bed is raised up so high. Fortunately, I saw the perfect lamps in the entry way on their way to the storage unit. These projects are so enjoyable. I wish you could all come with me and enjoy a look into how people surround themselves with things they love and live their lives. It is an amazing privilege really.

Luxury Has A Changing Face

This article was in an E-Zine from a local furniture rental company called Welcome Home in Dublin, CA.

"I had the pleasure to attend a great seminar and networking event last week that was just too good not to share. There were so many points relevant to our industry, my mind has been buzzing ever since. The seminar was entitled "Redefining Luxury in the West," given by Michael Wollaeger, Editor-In-Chief of Western Interiors & Design magazine.

Michael spoke eloquently about a new type of luxury emerging in the West that is influencing the global marketplace. Michael explained that this luxury is societal driven and is changing how the most important and influential builders, architects and designers are creating the hottest new living spaces. This is so apropos to what we do in the real estate industry, meaning that many of these trends need to be incorporated into how we market homes.

This new definition of luxury isn't about scale and abundance anymore. Space, in and of itself (and especially in the West), is a luxury. We have moved to an era where protecting space, such as in National Parks, holds great value. Architects are now being driven by the idea of land and sky, instead of just abundance. A very small space can now be viewed as luxurious simply because of the view. Even in urban areas, the idea of incorporating the cityscape view into the design is now more popular than trying to block it out.

Sanctuary places in the home to retreat from reality are now more popular than ever. This includes reading retreats, massage & yoga rooms, hotel style master bedrooms, and spa-like bathrooms. Spa style master baths are trending towards materials with rough textures; stone and metal and mixing them with natural light.

Indoor-outdoor extravagance is a trend that is gaining more and more momentum with sumptuous fabrics, rugs, lighting, and furniture for outdoors emerging in the marketplace. Now designers can fully furnish outdoor living spaces with formal dining and sitting areas.

Another major trend that is influencing almost every aspect of our lives is The Green Movement. In the luxury market, this trend has translated itself in many ways. Reclaimed materials, such as wood and metal, are unique and therefore luxurious. They are not obtainable to everyone. They are not materials that anyone can just go out and buy. They are rare and often have outstanding unique patinas. There is a desire for a sense of purpose to reuse and connect to the past to create a sense of soulfulness. The use of natural materials from local sources is now more luxurious than the idea of importing materials from half way around the world.

Small house lavishness has also emerged from The Green Movement. Buyers are seeking ways in which to make small spaces work in multifunctional ways. They want solutions that are easier on the planet. They want to make purchases based on what makes them feel good about themselves and their lives.

All these trends are on the cutting edge of Interior Design today. So how does, and should that, relate to how we market and sell houses now? We have the opportunity to use the knowledge of these trends on every home we prepare for sale. Often times when we need to market a home with an older floor plan that does not have a dedicated home office, we create a home office in one of the bedrooms. Even though our lives are now more dependent on the use of home computers than ever before, the ease and affordability of wireless networking has made the reality of a small laptop in any room of the house easily obtainable. We are trending towards using that space (that used to be for the home office) as a luxurious personal retreat. It can now be a yoga room, meditation space, or massage room. Almost any master bath can be made luxurious looking by adding the right accessories, art and plush towels. An unusual corner of a room can be transformed into a relaxing reading retreat. The best part is that with a professionally staged home that capitalizes on these luxuries, they are easily translated to the buyer with good photography on the internet.

You have the opportunity now to market homes this way. Will you stay on the cutting edge with current trends, or keep doing things the same way and expect your results to change?"

OCD And Me

Me as an Erupting Volcano

I feel a bit of a rant coming on. I just got the Circlepix from the house we did this week and I want to erupt. I think that photographers do not necessarily make good picture takers of home interiors. If they do not have a eye for details...whoops, you get something like this one. Go ahead and see for yourself here.

Some of you may say...so what is wrong with this? Well, let me show you as a point of enlightenment about staging, not criticism. Click on the virtual tour entitled Living Room and Dining Room. Because of the rotation of the camera you get one nano second of these two room and a whole lot hallway, lots of empty walls, stairs, etc. The camera man needs to know the focal point of the room which, in this case is the sofa and art work and it is poorly lit. When you look at the slides of the living room the pillows are messed up and I know that is very OCD but can I just tell you it is all about the details, man!

You would never use upholstered furniture as a focal point if you were living in the house, but the staging focal point can be different. I always put lots of pillows on the sofas to bring in more drama and color to the room and to deter people that come for a look from getting too comfortable and flopping down on the furniture. The tactic does not always work, but it helps.

When you look at the room your eye sweeps it in one kind of circular motion. This makes Circlepix a great idea if it is done correctly. Anything that is wrong, design-wise, stops your eyes dead in their tracks~like the messed up pillows or squinting to see because of lighting issues. It interrupts the feeling trying to be created of harmony, flow, beauty. This is important when 90% of prospective buyers begin their search on the Internet! They may not know what is wrong but they will sense something is.

Next look at the Family Room ~Kitchen virtual tour. This one is pretty much OK, however, and this is a little bit of very picky but look at the pillows in this photo. All messed up and the stripes are going horizontally...wrong, they need to be vertical! Again, it stops your eye right there, your brain knows this is not right. It is math or some crazy thing; maybe geometry finally finding a practical application. Also it bugs me because this room is mostly mustard with the primary accents being orange/rust. The art work, however has a lot of blue which is why I put the blue vase on the mantel. Now to the three big pillows on the floor, one is blue for a reason...to bring in a touch more blue as a secondary accent color. It is buried in the Circlepix and not how we left it. Argggh, I hate revealing myself to you all in this manner but I am compelled to purge!

The way it should have been in the Circlepix.

Now look at the Master Bed and Bath on the virtual tour. The only furniture in this room is the bed and an armoire. This translates to ~ the bed has to be fabulous. I love the art work and wanted to work it all together ~so advised the homeowner to buy some neutral beige bedding which he did. The problem with the bedding is the fabrication, it is primarily cotton so lots and lots of wrinkles. This totally bugs me, OCD~OCD. So Emily, Maureen and I all worked and worked with Downy Wrinkle Releaser on getting lots of the wrinkles out so that it looked pretty good. Now it looks like someone slept on it, not under it?

I have these great feathery black pillows and they look fantastic with the art and bedding. They even flutter in the breeze of the overhead fan. Now this is exciting stuff for a decorator~actual movement in the design. I know we are a weird lot! Then I went to Elegant Clutter in Danville and I found the crowning jewel, this amazing black and white nubby throw (not at all cheap) which we strategically placed on the bed. Voila! A lovely, romantic, Parisian scene. We walk away feeling so on top of our game.

Reality sets in when the homeowner sleeps in/on it for a couple of nights and the Circlepix person is a guy. Neither of these guys cares in the slightest bit about the placement of feathery pillows or fabulous chic throws. I think they think the words "throw pillows" and "throws" are a call to action on their parts, for surely these have been literally thrown on the bed and it apparently looks just fine to them (the homeowner and the photgrapher respectively.) Then because of the lightening for the Circlepix the "throw" looks like a big black lab sitting there! Hello People!! Geeeesh! I can hear you sigh and say, " Enough already...Bon, just get over it."

Too much to hope for?

One thing I know for sure no one has even entered that bathroom as it is exactly how we left it! PTL!

What I have learned from all this:

• If I put my name on something, I need to supervise what happens after I leave especially when Circlepix is coming in. I know that what we create is illusionary and that the house is in constant flux once a family comes home but, for that one moment in all eternity ~when the photos are shot, it has to be perfect. The other option is to not leave business cards at all.
  

• I really prefer staging vacant houses but need to learn to live with the reality that many clients remain in the houses while they are on the market.

• I will never relax my standards, but I have to know that when I walk away from the project, I have done my level best and after that it is out of my hands. Until my art is preserved in a museum like Michaelangelo's, David (surely I jest...) ~anything can happen. There are no security measures taken with Home Staging. While it is a big, fat, artsy deal to me~it isn't to most of the rest of the world so hopefully the perspective buyers don't see the flaws. Oddly enough, it may be a mute point anyway, as I heard they may have gotten an offer on the house last night in spite of it all. That would be a win /win for everyone as this is a fantastic house and with Cathy, agent extraordinaire, it won't last long.
  

• As for me I need to stop worrying about what happens after I leave. In the final analysis, as Jim says, I've come and done what I was hired to do and the check spends just fine either way!
  

Whew! I am done now~thanks for allowing the cathartic experience!

Disclaimer: Please know that all of my carping is in no way reflective upon the wonderful family that lives here. They are the best and I hope this sale works out perfectly for them. This stuff is primarily about me and my OCD tenancies while engaging in my passion~home decorating and staging for sale! Well, and maybe just a wee bit about the professional photographer!

Staged Wednesday, Broker's Tour Thursday, Shown Thursday night, Circlepix Friday,
Multiple (4) offers Saturday and Sunday, went into contract Monday! Whew!